Little Girl Lost (True Crime) [Paperback]

Joan Merriam (Author)

Book Description

Series: True Crime | Publication Date: January 1, 1998

On June 14, 1983, Shirley Katherine Wolf, 14, and Cindy Lee Collier, 15, stabbed 85-year-old Anna Brackett 28 times with a knife from her own kitchen. After confessing to the grisly murder, Wolf and Collier were sentenced to he maximum penalty under California law. Here is a moving insightful look at the terrible consequences of family neglect and sexual abuse. Photo insert.

Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Pinnacle (January 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786004878
• ISBN-13: 978-0786004874
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,415,975 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The story of Shirley and Cindy, December 8, 1997

By 

[e-mail] (Chicago) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Little Girl Lost (True Crime) (Paperback)

If you want to know how two young girls, ages 14 and 15, could ameteurishly slaughter an 85-year-old woman who had let them into her house to let them use the telephone, then read this book.

While giving due space to the horrific crime committed by Shirley Wolf and Cindy Collier, the book also recounts the abuse Shirley and Cindy suffered at the hands of their families. Shirley's experience is almost unimagineable. Her father began molesting her at age three, and began having intercourse with her at age nine. He took nude photos of her to share with other pedophiles.

But there's more. It seems that, in a twisted and perverse way, Shirley loved her father, and was her mother's rival for his affections. An unbelievable but true story, it will steamroll even the most ardent reader of true crime. Read it and be changed!

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An insightful portrayal of two tragic lives!, October 24, 1999

By 

Susan J. Rugg (Wisconsin) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Little Girl Lost (True Crime) (Paperback)

The author of this book is a superb writer. Having read hundreds of true crime books, non have impressed me like this one. This book is an outstanding portrayal of the ravages of childhood emotional, physical and sexual abuse. Shirley and Cindy never had a fair chance at life. The book is a fast and fascinating read. It will be hard to forget. I hope Shirley and Cindy have found some peace in their lives. I think you'll agree that the parents of these two girls played a role in the murder of Anna Brackett, especially Katherine and Louis Wolf! They are a disgrace and their treatment of Shirley is unforgivable. If you want to understand why children kill, read this book.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Well Researched True Crime, June 23, 2008

By 

Dan Bogaty "Mr. Congeniality" - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Little Girl Lost (True Crime) (Paperback)

Joan Merriam's LITTLE GIRL LOST recounts the 1983 murder of 85 year old Anna Brackett by teenagers Cindy Collier, 15, and Shirley Wolfe, 14, for no other reason than that they wanted to kill someone. After a few unsuccessful attempts at finding a victim, they found and brutally killed Ms. Brackett.
This book has many positives. The research is outstanding with Merriam providing a continuing detailed account of the lives of the girls, both of whom were victims of mental and physical abuse and of incest, Cindy by her brother and Shirley, over a period of 10 or more years by her particularly sickening father. As a rare and totally interesting bonus which helps the reader to understand the degraded home lives led by the girls and ultimately the intense anger which led to the murder, Merriam even details in some depth the childhoods of the girls' parents, a wholly welcome and relatively rare occurence in the genre.

Merriam's writing is strange in that it improves markedly in part two which is titled "Pilgrimage to Hell" and which is the beginning of the aforementioned family histories. The writing in this section - and through the remainder of the book - is fast paced, literate, and intelligent, and from that point - page 77 to the end of this 370 page book - LITTLE GIRL LOST is hard to put down.
The writing in the first section is a different. In that section, Merriam seems to flounder about trying to "be a writer" rather than just writing straightforwardly as she does later on, and her attempts to re-create dialog are particularly weak. For example, when the EMTs respond to a 911 call reporting a dead or dying Ms. Brackett, Merriam has them knock on the door and say, "Open up please - it's the ambulance company." I can guarantee you that no EMTs arriving at an emergency call, ever said those words.
And she quotes a young girl, Donna, who witnessed the girls running from the scene as discussing "...those two girls we seen off the balcony..." though in the next paragraph she says "We saw them..." The witness is also quoted as reporting the girls as "bangin'" on doors, "hollerin'", and "runnin'" Merriam wasn't there and she has NO way of knowing how that girl talked. In that light her decision to have the witness talk as I have described is irritating and not believable. And does Donna say "saw" or "seen"? As a final bow to the nonsensical, Merriam quotes Donna as saying about Cindy and Shirley, "They looked real suspiciouslike." Yes. She really did. There is NO way a girl in California in the 1980s said this unless she was practicing for her audition in "The Stereotypical Hillbilly Follies".
I came close to quitting reading this book during this section, but I'm very glad I didn't, because the story is great and the writing - as noted - does a 180 degree turn.

The book continues with the arrest and trial of the girls. Merriam in an epilogue reports a jailhouse interview with Shirley. This is very welcome and quite good as far as it goes, but it reports almost exclusively how
she is dealing with her current situation and the changes she's gone through since her incarceration. I would have like to hear - in her own words - her thoughts on her upbringing, her horrible life as a child, and her incestuous love-hate relationship with her father. And there is no closing interview with Cindy at all. I feel that the expansion of the epilogue section would have helped create a considerably stronger book.

Taken as a whole, LITTLE GIRL LOST is a well done true crime effort. Merriam states in her introduction that she too was a victim of incest and a dysfunctional family; and that she is able to write in a "warm" and understanding style which she manages to prevent from becoming melodrama, is commendable. I strongly recommend this book to lovers of true crime, even if you have to fight through some of section one.